NOTE: I currently have a wait list through the end of 2024 and am not accepting new clients at this time for Brainspotting intensives. The website will be updated when openings are available in 2025. There are a few spots available for low dose ketamine and cannabis assisted psychotherapy intensives in 2024. Please contact us to be wait listed.

My primary offering is trauma healing intensives utilizing Brainspotting, somatic psychotherapy, parts-work, and other healing interventions.

Have a problem you’ve been wanting to work through for awhile?  If you’ve found that weekly or hour long therapy sessions have not allowed the time and space you need to fully process or resolve an issue, a Brainspotting Intensive Retreat may be a wonderful option for you. Behaviors or issues that are more complex or you’ve had difficulty changing in regular therapy can benefit from an intensive.

Intensives are designed as a personalized retreat curated for you and your needs. We both come prepared to do deep work on an issue or pattern. It is a way to create dedicated time to your recovery from a problematic issue without the the limits of time. This enhanced focus allows both of us to go deep into the historical roots of your issue and help to resolve or significantly lessen your concerns at their core.

In a therapy intensive, we first complete an initial assessment to get to know one another and identify if moving forward with an intensive would be the best approach for your presenting issue.

We decide together how much time you want to or may need to spend on processing the issue (up to 4-5 hours a day for one or multiple days in a row-breaks are included).

Some issues that client engage in intensives for are:

• complex PTSD

• substance use/addictions

• grief

• racial and generational trauma

• severe anxiety and depression

• longstanding issues

• a stuckness/inability to resolve issues in weekly therapy

I also offer intensives utilizing Brainspotting, somatic psychotherapy, and low-dose ketamine or cannabis.

Ketamine is a medication that has been used for many years as an anesthetic. Recently, it is being used off-label as a rapid-acting antidepressant for treatment-resistant depression, as well as for anxiety and PTSD. Ketamine works by modulating certain neurotransmitters in the brain, particularly glutamate, which has been implicated in the development of depression and other mood disorders. Clients report that ketamine can help them in getting “unstuck” and to see life from a birds-eye view.

Cannabis, which is now legal in Minnesota, has been used medicinally for thousands of years. It is currently being researched for its efficacy to treat anxiety, PTSD, chronic pain, and a whole host of mental health and medical concerns. At low doses, cannabis can assist with dissolving dissociation, helping to access stored survival energies that have been blocked or inhibited due to dissociation. We have THC and CBD receptors throughout our bodies and at low-doses, cannabis can assist people in embodying themselves and getting a different perspective on their issues due to its psychoactive properties.

By combining somatic psychotherapy with the power of these medicines, the therapist and client can utilize a low (psycholytic) dose of ketamine or cannabis to help "unlock" and facilitate the processing of traumatic memories or emotions during a brainspotting session. Ketamine can assist with lowering defenses and vigilance (creating a strong container for the processing) and thereby increasing access to process challenging material with less overwhelm. In contrast, cannabis can increase sensitivity where there has been dissociation to help get direct access to issues. In conjunction with Brainspotting and somatic work, these combined processes can help clients release the charge of stored trauma and return to balance.

A Brainspotting and ketamine or cannabis intensive is a 3-hour session and can be done for up to 3 days in a row.

These intensives can be supportive if you are:

• feeling stuck and want to do a deep dive to address your concerns

• experience overwhelm when processing in therapy

• struggling with PTSD/complex PTSD, treatment-resistant depression, grief, and anxiety

• having a difficult time accessing or focusing on your emotions/issues

• you experience numbness, detachment, or dissociation

• interested in experiencing psychedelic therapy, but aren’t ready to do a psychedelic dose

• have completed a full psychedelic assisted therapy journey with ketamine (or other medicines) and would like to do a block session for maintenance, or to work through another layer that has emerged

• may experience side effects from a full-dose of ketamine or cannabis

• your concerns are attachment-based/relational in root (working in low doses can be supportive for folks with attachment traumas while higher doses tend to have a transpersonal effect)

A full medical evaluation and diagnostic assessment are required to assess if utilizing these medicines in combination with psychotherapy (including which one may be more beneficial) would be safe and effective for you.

These individual intensives can also be focused on therapists or other healers wanting to deepen their attunement and capacity to hold space in their work. These can be patterns within the parallel process of therapy that restrict the practitioner’s ability to be present, such as performance issues or experiencing limbic countertransference (absorbing energy in client sessions due to vicarious trauma).

I also offer special intensives to help therapists and practitioners dismantle their own racial biases, internalized systems of oppression, supremacy, or other concerns so that they can illuminate and shift this lens in their practice with clients and participate in the creation of a more just world. It really starts with our own work and is a courageous step forward in addressing issues within ourselves that decay our society.

By addressing issues that detract from attunement in the therapeutic relationship and increasing the capacity to have a settled body with better energetic and emotional boundaries, therapists and healers can learn to practice witnessing their clients on a much deeper relational and neurophysiological level and engage more effectively in their work.

Intensives for healers are a blend of consultation and brain and body-based awareness with the goal of helping the body enter coherence and regulation. A calm, conscious, settled body will help other bodies to regulate. They are also a form of self-care, especially given that the healing professions interface with suffering and trauma material on a regular basis. Spending time to clear, self-reflect and replenish can impact your work and perspective in a fresh, positive way.

Intensives can be conducted via telehealth or in person.